Chapter 110
Chapter 110
“They’re coming from the right. Let’s move low.”
“…….”
Seriously… do we really have to go this far?
But Ryu Cheong-woo had already begun to crawl forward with a deadly serious expression.
‘Crawling through the grass wearing a Hwarang outfit and a wig….’
It was a horrific hybrid.
In the midst of that, an arrow whistled over my head and thudded into the wooden fence.
Thwack!
Bright blue pigment splattered across the wooden planks.
Immediately, Ryu Cheong-woo’s eyes sharpened as he aimed his bow toward the source of the arrow.
Of course, it was just a toy bow for kids.
Whoosh!
“Gah!”
“Out~!”
“Aw, so close!”
Two final survivors from the team wearing orange headbands emerged from behind a fence, their shoulders drenched in yellow pigment. They were the ones who had been popping their heads up and down from the edge of the fence to take shots.
‘…He took out two with one shot.’
This was practically an ecological disaster. It felt like watching a Diamond-tier player on a smurf account slaughtering noobs in Bronze from the same team.
“Three teams left. We’ll hit the left side first.”
Give it a rest, man.
“…Hyung, how about we wait until the numbers drop a bit more?”
“Ah.”
Only then did Ryu Cheong-woo realize he was overdoing it, and a look of slight embarrassment crossed his face. He looked like an adult who had been playing a dead-serious game of snowballs with kids and suddenly snapped back to reality.
“Right… Let’s wait back there.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Hmm, it’s been a while since I’ve done something like this. It’s fun.”
Ryu Cheong-woo looked somewhat refreshed.
It seemed he was the type to relieve stress by winning these kinds of primal competitive games.
‘Does he play RoR?’
He seemed like the type who wouldn't even be fazed by trash talk about his parents, so it would be perfect for him.
Anyway, following Ryu Cheong-woo’s suggestion, we crawled behind the largest nearby fence.
But before we could even arrive, arrows started flying again. It was the guys with the green headbands.
‘Did they already finish off the other side?’
They even had four people left.
‘I should probably get hit and get eliminated soon.’
If Ryu Cheong-woo took out about two more, it would be a good look for the other team to win and wrap things up.
However, the situation didn't go as expected.
“Watch out…!”
“Whoa!”
“Did I get him?”
“Aaaargh!”
It was true that Ryu Cheong-woo eliminated two more.
But immediately after, he was finally hit by paint and eliminated—except he took down the last remaining member of the other team with him in a mutual kill.
So, suddenly, it was just me and one guy in a green headband left in a one-on-one match.
“…….”
“…….”
Is this for real?
The problem was that the other side realized they had to take out Ryu Cheong-woo first and focused their fire on him, while Ryu Cheong-woo prioritized shooting whoever looked most likely to hit him.
In other words, the two survivors were the weakest links who had just been camping the whole time.
The other guy seemed flustered too, repeatedly letting out "Uh, uh?" as he fumbled his arrows.
“…Heh.”
It suddenly turned into a battle of the scrubs.
Just then, Ryu Cheong-woo, whose neck was covered in paint, shouted quickly.
“Moondae! Use me as cover and hit him, quick!!”
“…….”
What happened to our unspoken agreement to take it easy?
Regardless, I couldn't look like I wasn't trying, so I ducked down and aimed my bow as best as I could.
“Gah!”
The funny thing was, in the middle of that, the paint the other guy fired actually hit Ryu Cheong-woo’s back.
‘That actually works?’
I fired my arrow with a dubious feeling.
It was a shot I fully expected to miss. It would probably sail right over his head.
“…Whoa!”
“……?”
But… it hit?
“Ah!! Seriously!!”
Of all things, the last guy had raised his hand to pull out an arrow just as I fired, and he basically moved his hand right into the path of my arrow.
How does something like this even happen?
“Wooooooo!!”
“Moondae wins!!”
The guys who had been waiting after being eliminated poured out and started cheering.
Ryu Cheong-woo also gave me a broad grin and patted my back.
“Good job!”
“…Wow!”
I looked at the camera and pumped my fists. Since I won, I might as well prevent any "attitude controversy."
But then, the MC, who had come running out of the commentary booth, delivered some news.
“Ah~ TeSTAR Hwarangs! You’re disqualified!”
“……?!”
“Why!?”
“Eliminated Hwarangs must leave the battlefield immediately! You cannot help a surviving Hwarang!”
“…!!”
And so, the victory went to the Green Team.
“The winner of the Paint Battle is…… Onyx!”
“Waaaaaaaah!!”
“We did it!!”
And the TeSTAR members looked like raccoons who had just watched their cotton candy dissolve in water.
“…….”
“Is it Cheong-woo hyung’s fault?”
“Sorry…….”
“It’s okay.”
With Cha Yu-jin’s dejected reply, the filming for Idol Hwarang Clash came to an end.
And Idol Hwarang Clash was a spectacular failure.
It wasn't because of the "sadism controversy" or any other scandal.
It was just boring as hell.
Because the editing and captions were so dated, they failed to capture any of the "so-bad-it's-good" charm of the content.
Furthermore, the promotion wasn't aggressive enough, so there wasn't much buzz about TeSTAR appearing before it aired.
The production crew had been so conscious of the "Idol Olympics" that they focused only on the program format when sending out press releases.
As a result, many people who were only casually interested in TeSTAR didn't even know they were on the show.
Idol Hwarang Clash served its purpose by leaving behind photos and videos of various idols in Hwarang costumes to be used as fan-attraction material.
Then, it quietly ended without being picked up for a regular season.
However, separately from that, the stock of TeSTAR, who had appeared on this failed program, continued to rise.
=========================
[TeSTAR’s First-Week Sales Are Out]
: Closed at 780,000 copies (Weekly Trend Summary Table)
=========================
Fans were still being cautious, but TeSTAR, who had broken their own first-week record by over 100,000 copies and was holding strong on the digital charts, had completely established themselves as a "successful idol group."
Thanks to that, their first-week performance easily earned them a #1 win on a major broadcast station.
=========================
[The Boys’ Music Gayo #1 Speech + Encore Video]
: Guys, I’m so happy for you ㅠㅠ
+ The #1 promise was swapping parts ㅋㅋㅋ So cute…
=========================
While fans were nervous about any strange incidents caused by friction with other fandoms, they continued their fan life happily, enjoying the thrill of a career high.
It was around that time that the game TeSTAR collaborated with, Section 127, was released.
In truth, fans weren't particularly wary of this game. This was because there were almost no elements in TeSTAR’s comeback activities that seemed related to it.
The analyses that had popped up when the trailer first came out had also withered away, overshadowed by the analysis of the "Airplane" music video.
The atmosphere was similar when the game advertisements appeared.
The ads were just photos of the TeSTAR members promoting the game in their trailer outfits.
The reaction from game enthusiasts was also decent.
Though anxious, they welcomed the fact that the scale was growing. Even if the company did something stupid, the chances of it failing immediately decreased.
And on the day the game was released.
Both the TeSTAR fandom and the gaming communities were turned upside down.
“Oh, it’s done.”
Park Moondae’s first fansite master put down the Hwarang video of Park Moondae she had been editing and checked her smartphone.
The download for Section 127 was complete, and the app icon had been added to her home screen.
‘I’ve never played a game like this… but I should try it at least once.’
Since Moondae advertised it, after all. She intended to contribute at least one download and one play count.
Of course, since she had no hobby for such games, she planned to just do the tutorial and turn it off. She launched the app.
‘Let’s get this over with.’
After a brief additional installation time, the tutorial began immediately.
[You have opened your eyes in Section 127.]
And five minutes later. In the game, this university student encountered a companion character.
It was a boy in a black hoodie who used a drone. Every time he controlled the drone, his eyes glowed with a purple light.
“……!?”
It was the Park Moondae from the comeback trailer.